Mr Shorten said he called Mr Yasuda after reading his comments in The Australian Financial Review yesterday in which the Japanese businessman said he didn’t understand how 30 per cent of staff in some areas of the Toyota factory called in sick some days. Mr Shorten said he would follow up the discussion with a detailed meeting in coming weeks.

“He wants to improve productivity, he wants to improve his relationships with the workforce, he wants to work with the unions," Mr Shorten said. “I’m convinced that Toyota is committed to Australia. He’s seeking a win-win."

Mr Shorten’s personal approach highlights how sensitive the Labor government is to criticism by business leaders of the Fair Work Act.

Pressure on manufacturing companies, including car makers, from the high dollar has stoked a national debate over whether the act is hurting productivity.

“I’d appreciate his insights," Mr Shorten said. “It’s not for me to give him advice. It’s for me to understand his perspective. But he didn’t evince to me any sense of pessimism about the future or the system.

“In my experience of a thousand workplaces, regulation or deregulation is not the key determinant of a positive workplace culture . . . What really matters in a workplace is leadership, loyalty, innovation.

“The old saying that ‘how you hire is how you fire’ is still relevant."

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The government sees car manufacturing as a political asset. Labor yesterday committed to continue subsidising car manufacturing by Toyota, Ford and General Motors while it remains in government. The Coalition wants to cut $500 million from the scheme, a move Labor says will cost thousands of jobs.

“I am determined and Labor is determined that whilst ever Labor is here, we will be making cars in Australia," Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
said yesterday on a visit to Boeing Aerostructures Australia in Port Melbourne.

Next month, the board of General Motors will decide whether to accept a financial aid package from the government, according to Manufacturing Minister
Kim Carr
, which will allow the US company to continue making cars at its factory in North Adelaide. Sales of Holden police cars to the US have been hit by the dollar.

The president and chief executive of General Motors Holden, Mike Devereux, said he was optimistic the deal would be approved in Detroit. “I’m very, very hopeful that we will get a good outcome," Mr Devereux said.

Ms Gillard denied a culture of absenteeism was undermining Australian industry and said industrial laws didn’t need to be changed.

She said there was no excuse for taking unwarranted sick days, but history showed the problem existed in the 1960s – well before the Fair Work Act.

“I am not going to take Australia in a race to the bottom which is about cutting wages and cutting penalty rates and benefits to workers . . . on Toyota they have a long history of co-operative relations between management and the workers there," Ms Gillard said.

About 170,000 Australians called in sick the day after Australia Day last week, according to the Aus­tralian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Unions were angered by the comments from Mr Yasuda, who said the industrial relations system wasn’t flexible enough to allow companies to cut their labour costs easily when sales fell.

He also expressed disappointment at what he felt was a union-driven strike last year at ­Toy­ota, which prides itself on harmonious relations with staff.

Car industry union leader
Ian Jones
said the comments were “unwelcome at this particular time" and that Toyota should have raised its concerns about productivity and absenteeism internally or in ­negotiations with the union.

“There’s nothing constructive and there’s nothing useful in terms of local relationships on the job . . . I want to have a meeting with Max to understand why he has represented them in this way," Mr Jones said.

Toyota plans to fire 350 staff and wants to use attendance records to help choose who will go. Car unions are fighting the plan and Mr Yasuda’s comments may heighten ­tensions.

The union movement said Australia doesn’t have an absenteeism problem. ACTU secretary
Jeff Lawrence
said work practices had changed substantially and local full-time workers worked long hours by international standards with much unpaid overtime and high rates of causal and part time work.

“There’s a whole range of employers and employers’ spokespeople who just come out with these generalisations that are completely without foundation," Mr Lawrence said.

Ford and GM Holden denied they were experiencing the problems raised by Toyota. But experts pointed to the Fair Work Act as the source of a divide between workers and their employers.

Paul Gollan, associate dean of business at Macquarie University, said the act did not include mechanisms to separate wages and bargaining from workplace problems such as a high number of sick days.

“It is very hard to develop a workplace culture if the people who are representing the employees are external to the organisation," Professor Gollan said. “You have a mismatch of your objectives and aims."